Consensus on the advantages of Merdeka curriculum in SMP teachers’ perception in Padang City

Abstract

The implementation of Merdeka curriculum as an effort to overcome the learning lag caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as to make it easier for education units to develop and implement learning in accordance with the conditions and potential possessed by education units, regions, and the interests of students. The purpose of this study is to analyze and compare teachers’ perceptions, in themes categorized. Then, to determine a consensus about the importance of each theme. The researcher used a study with a Delphi Method at SMP Padang city, West Sumatra, Indonesia. The Research informants are 14 expert teachers representing schools, who were willing and had experienced the advantages of implementing a Merdeka curriculum from 43 junior high schools in Padang city. The findings of this study are: teachers’ responses to the importance of themes showed an average agree between 3.71 to 2.01 with Kendall Coefficient of Concordance (W) of 0.180 greater than 0.05 and a significance value lower than .05, namely, .039, meaning that the consistency of teachers’ responses has been met. The importance of each theme starting from: (1) Oriented to the needs and abilities of students, teachers and schools; (2) Strengthening critical, creative and communicative thinking skills; (3) Increasing student learning motivation; (4) Supporting meaningfulness in learning; and (5) Supporting individual independence.